XX THE HOUSE OF THE POOR

THE poor who lived in “The House” were few, for the Jewish home is rarely broken up, no matter how galling the poverty, and family ties bind and obligate its stronger members even through far removed cousinships. The permanent residents were:—Two old, scolding, toothless women, an epileptic boy—some one’s illegitimate offspring, a burden to himself more than to any one else, and the caretaker, who was also grave-digger, his wife and children. The House of the Poor was open day and night to those who wander up and down the land; unfortunates, wanderers, beggars, paupers, who keep Jewish benevolence active, often straining it to the breaking point.

The Schnorer, as he is called, is a gentlemanly sort of beggar. He is rarely in rags, is tolerably clean, and every house in which a Jew lives is his; he enters it without knocking—never asks for alms, yet is always sure of a gift. He does not tell a hard luck story, but should he tell one, it would be an almost exact duplicate of that which another Schnorer had told before him. It is a story which has as its key-note persecution; its minor details are: destruction of house by fire, blindness, consumption, and the begging of a dowry for a marriageable daughter. These are some of the ills of Judaism, which chronically afflicted those who passed through the House of the Poor. I heard them tell of the fires of hate, which destroyed straw-thatched cottages, business, virtue, old age and youth. I heard racking coughs, felt the groping touch of the blind, and listened to wise men trying to balance this world upon the needle points of rabbinic exegesis. I do not recall that I ever saw a cheerful face nor heard laughter, nor do I remember that any one wept. After all, misfortune was to many a business asset, even as pious learning was; and in this, the people in the House of the Poor proved that they were typical humans. I fear that I went there more than my mother wished me to go, and more perhaps than was good for me; but I went to listen to the Schnorers’ tales. They knew Europe, from Hamburg to Constantinople; knew each wealthy Jew, how much he gave, and they measured his chances of Heaven by his gifts to them. They also knew the good places to stop over the Sabbath, and what seat to take in the synagogue in order to catch the eye of those benevolent worshippers who invited Schnorers to share the Sabbath goose.

These were not the worst things with which I became acquainted. The poor indulged in gambling, they drank palenka, and I saw and heard many things whose horror I felt but did not clearly understand. It was a great clinic in poverty, although doubtless I was too young to attend its classes.

The epileptic boy was my special friend; he was much older than I, as in fact were all my friends. His malady took peculiar forms. Before each attack he would wander off, and when he passed under the spell of the disease he had most wonderful hallucinations. He saw visions and declared them eloquently and poetically. Many a time I have seen him rise from the gutter and speak an hour to an ever-increasing crowd, which, although it did not understand him, was held by the spell of his eloquence.

One day a Schnorer told about the city of Hamburg through which he had schnorred. He expatiated upon its rich and poor, its delicious fish, its schnaps, and the great ships he had seen, full of passengers sailing for America. Then each of the Schnorers told something of that far-away country, its fabled wealth and wonderful possibilities. Their stories fitted into my dissatisfied mood, and that evening, when the epileptic proposed our running away to America, I readily assented.

There is, I suppose, a natural restlessness which every lad feels at a certain age; it is the flitting instinct, the desire to leave the nest and try one’s own wings; to me that feeling came often, and this time with irresistible force.

We made no elaborate plans—youth is so optimistic. My companion was a wanderer upon the face of the earth, and when he promised to see me safe and sound in America, I was as sure of it as if America had been the next village, a mile away.

Early in the morning I left my home and was joined on the highway by the epileptic. Before sunrise we were on the outskirts of the town. A hackman, driving to the nearest railroad station with an empty coach, took us as passengers, and I paid him all the ready cash in my possession, trusting that once at the station, Hamburg and America would be within easy reach.

I had some rolls in my pockets which made our dinner, and when night came we had reached the railroad and heard the buzzing telegraph wires and the puffing of a far-away engine. The third class waiting-room was full of its queer and crude mixture of humanity.

Hard-faced and hard-fisted men, going to the city to work and seek their fortune; women, bent nearly double by the loads upon their backs, linen and embroideries for sale among the city folk; insolent young men surrounding young girls who bravely resisted the assaults upon their purity.

I have often seen that picture since and breathed the same foul atmosphere; but never again has it been as terrible as it was that night. The mixed train for Vienna came, and when we tried to board it without tickets we were arrested as vagrants, and thrown into the town jail.

A jail at best is no place for a child, and this jail was never fit for any human beings. There were at least thirty people in a comparatively small room, and in that miscellaneous crowd there were half a dozen women. When we entered, the inmates had just begun to make ready for the night and were fighting among themselves for places nearest the stove, as it was a cool autumn evening. Animals are never fiercer than these men were. Oaths in a dozen languages and dialects filled the putrid air; races and classes united against each other; the Slavs cursed the Magyars, and they together beat the Jews and drove the Gypsies into a corner by themselves.

The women fought like tigers; they had to, for the men were assaulting them and there was no protection but their inborn sense of virtue, which is a mighty force in women, even in the lowest. One girl, who had the hardest fight, was a young Gypsy. She beat, scratched, kicked and drove off more than a score of men, who were awed as much by her indomitable courage as by her brute strength.

We came into the jail crying; at least, I remember that I cried, and both of us were shaking from the cold and sick from hunger. We remained unnoticed in the mêlée, but when our cries grew louder, an old hag, a bony, rough-looking creature, heard us. “Boshe muy!” she cried when she saw us. Then, realizing our condition, she fed us cold cabbage out of a black, earthen pot. The women quarrelled as to who should care for us during the night. I went to sleep with my head upon the old hag’s lap; she did not have room enough to lie down full length. I closed my eyes amid the subdued struggle and my unsubdued grief.

Early in the morning, before dawn, I was awakened by a tumult of voices. My epileptic companion was standing on top of the cold stove, speaking and wildly gesticulating. The men and women listened in amazement as his confused speech rose to a pitch of eloquence. I wish I could remember just what he said, but I know that I, in fact every one, felt as if the jail had grown larger and the air purer. We actually saw the pictures he drew.

One of them was a fire—yes, the Pany’s house was burning—the Kisaszonka, his beautiful daughter, was behind the barred windows and the epileptic would save her. He strained his muscles and the veins of his thin arms swelled as the surging blood filled them.

“Here she was, in her raiment of white, like a twig of rosemary, fragrant and pure—he had rescued her, and who had a right to marry her but he, her saviour?”

Then he drew for us a battle-field; bullets flew, the air was thick from powder smoke, the enemy was advancing, the general, a prince, was on his white charger leading his army to kill and drive back the invaders. “Behold! A swift riding Kozak. He rises in his stirrups and draws his sword. It hangs over the head of my beloved prince—it is ready to fall! I must save my prince! Ride on horse! On and on!”

He drew his imaginary sword, and swung it with all his might. “Ha! the Kozak sinks, cloven in twain!”

There stood the epileptic before us, more than half the watchers not understanding what he said; yet all hanging upon his words. Then, like a wounded soldier he sank upon a bench, and slipped to the floor. His pale face was covered by perspiration, he foamed at the mouth, he ground his teeth, and every muscle of his body seemed to be straining and struggling against its encircling tension.

It was now daylight, and the jailor called our names. I responded to both, and pushing through the crowd, saw my brother, who had come after me. Before he bought me my breakfast he gave me the severe beating which I so richly deserved.

The next night I was safe in my own quiet, clean, white bed, and mother was talking to me. She told me again the story of my birth and my babyhood, the pain I had caused, the little pleasure I had brought, and now she was going to send me away to school. Although I was desperately tired, I did not go to sleep, for it was the closing chapter of my boyhood’s life.

Years later, a great, gruff, German teacher, after telling us of the pains of motherhood, looked at us fiercely and cried: “You’re not worth it! Not a mother’s son of you!” And I felt sure that I was not.